Advertisement:

Most games end with a winner and a loser. Everyone likes to win and no one likes to lose, so there's a code of conduct (written or unwritten) that says both parties need to be gracious about the outcome. Losers shouldn't rant and rave; winners shouldn't dance and gloat. It's just unsportsmanlike (even if it doesn't involve sports) to defeat someone and then pile on the humiliation afterward.

This character has never read the code of conduct. Whether she's being subtly rude about it, or outright shouting "Loser! Loser! Nya, nya, nya!", Alice sees no need to be a gracious winner. She won, so why shouldn't she enjoy the moment? Who cares if her defeated foes think she's an utter Jerkass? They're probably just jealous anyway. (She rarely plays the same opponent twice.)

Advertisement:

Note that this is not just wanting to crush your enemies and hear the lamentations of their women. This is strictly for when Alice wins and proceeds to be insufferable about it. Although doing those things just after you win does count.

Needless to say, this is not a good habit to get into in Real Life. People can and have been disqualified from contests and tournaments for taunting and humiliating their opponents. Not to mention it'll pretty much guarantee that your friends will never want to play anything with you anymore. Moreover, making gloating and insulting remarks after a victory may end up being Fisticuff-Provoking Comments if your opponent lacks self-control.

A Sister Trope to Sore Loser (and the more gloating and ungracious a character is in victory, the more sulky and ungracious they'll be in defeat).

In the Unova arc, this is apparently the reasoning behind Burgundy's bitter resentment towards Cilan after he beat her in a Gym battle and decided to rub it in her face. He doesn't remember doing that at all, implying that Burgundy exaggerated her loss.

Iron Wok Jan: At one point Jan follows a defeated opponent out to the street to taunt him some more as the fellow looked insufficiently crushed.

In Azumanga Daioh Yukari does this after the first two of the three Sports Fest the second one complete with the Finger Point and "Loser Team Loser Team" her class just walks aways when she starts it.

In Fairy Tail, Flare Corona mocks Lucy mercilessly after she wins their match in the magic tournament. Even worse than usual since the only reason Flare won was because one of her teammates interefered from the sidelines to depower Lucy right when she had Flare on the ropes. Flare doesn't get off completely scott free though — in a later chapter, one of her other teammates beats her up for being so weak.

In Gundam Build Fighters Try, Yomi of Team G-Master engages in some snotty gloating towards Kaoruko (AKA Gyanko) after G-Master beats Team Song Dynasty Vase. Yomi's teammate Sudou tells her to knock it off, and when she continues her other teammate Akira Suga slaps her and chews her out, saying it's wrong to mock an opponent who fought to the best of their ability. (Note that this sequence is an Homage to a similar scene from Mobile Suit Gundam, with Akira taking the place of his Expy material Sleggar Law.)note It should be noted that in the next scene, he sports a handprint from her slapping him back. This isn't the 70's after all.

Seto Kaiba from the original Yu-Gi-Oh! was basically infamous for this.

Announcer: This excitement isn't just about the fun of baseball. It's not about the prize. It's about the gloating, the rubbing their noses in it, the nah-nah-nah-nah-nah-we-beat-you taunting, if you will, that comes with the winning.

Cars: Chick Hicks, after winning the Piston Cup by deliberately causing an accident for the car who'd been beating him for years. If the dirty race hadn't cost him the Dinoco sponsorship already, then the gloating certainly put him over the top.

In Coco, it wasn't enough for Ernesto to murder Hector and steal the credit for his songs. He also felt the need to include a scene depicting the exact way that he killed Hector in one of his movies, casting himself as the hero who realizes he was poisoned, for no other reason but to gloat. He even named the film ''The Way Home'', when all Héctor wanted was to go back to his family.

He also stole Hector's beloved guitar and used it his entire career, seemingly out of pure spite.

Downplayed in The Lion King. After Simba and Nala get into an argument they wrestle and Nala easily pins Simba, then playfully teases him "pinned ya." After he pushes her off of him, she has a smug satisfied smile on her face and when Simba tries to get back at her right away she once again pins him and while smirking down at him taunts "pinned ya again" in a much more smug and superior tone than her previous playful one. This is despite being Simba's best friend and him being the prince of the Pride Lands at the time. Though somewhat justified as Simba also started both of their brief fights and the argument that started it all, and the two of them were only cubs at the time. It is averted later in the film when Simba finally manages to pin Nala as adults, and she is a Graceful Loser who accept her loss, even though it was a complete accident, and rewards Simba with a surprise lick on the cheek.

Yeah, I stole your story, whoop-de-doodle-do! I STOLE JASON SHEPARD'S STORY AND TURNED IT INTO BIG FAT LIAR! Do you know who's listening? Nobody and get used to it. Because I will never-ever-never-ever-ever-ever-ever-infinity tell the truth!

Good Will Hunting has Will do this as an awesome moment after getting Skylar's number, as the guy he beat is a bit of a jerk. Has led to an Ascended Meme:

Will:: How do you like them apples?

In Django Unchained, Calvin Candie is described by Dr. Schultz as being "an abysmal winner". It is Candie's insistence on gloating and rubbing his victory in Schultz's face that causes Schultz to shoot him.

This Is the End: Happens towards the end when James Franco chooses to sacrifice himself so Seth and Jay could escape from Danny and his band of cannibals, knowing he'll be raptured. It y starts to work until he makes the mistake of flipping off and calling Danny's group every vulgar thing in the book, resulting in his rapture being canceled and his death. Then Seth and Jay discuss how a "sore winner" is hard to redeem.

Literature

Shelby of the Hive Series does this at every opportunity. Otto, as well, to a lesser extent.

Even earlier, "No Girls Allowed" had Sister displaying this trope as a minor plot point and the reason the boys set up their boys only club. Mama gently calls her out on it while Sister is ranting about how unfair the boys are being and while Sister still goes through with her plan, she has the grace to look sheepish.

Esme Weatherwax insists on not killing her opponents since it's no real victory if you can't rub it in their faces. It's a witch thing, but possibly more a Weatherwax thing, as lampshaded when she's the only one of the three witches to instantly realise why Lady Lilith didn't kill them. As demonstrated by Greebo, it's also a cat thing. There is also no such thing as a "friendly contest" with Granny Weatherwax; when one of the other witches tells Lettice Earwig that they've never needed a trophy for the Witch Trials because "everyone just knows who won", Nanny Ogg sardonically notes that this is very true indeed.

Among the Gods, Fate tends to be this; he's been accused at least once of being "a sore winner". (He's also capable of being a sore loser, as shown when Cohen the Barbarian uses an unconventional method of winning at dice.)

Live Action TV

In Perfect Strangers, Larry talked about how Mr. Gorply would rub the bowling trophies he won in Larry's face. Balky tells Larry to be a good sport when he finally wins, but then agrees to let Larry have one phone call about it.

The King of Queens: Arthur Spooner has been shown to be much like this, which had — strong effects on his daughter.

Hot Shot: In this Chinese drama series, one of the more famous and well known scenes from the series consists of a music video-like part where the main characters taunt the opposing basketball team after their win. They're shown to dance their own choreographed victory taunting dance to Nese's "Superman" (which, in and of itself, is pretty much a song dedicated to Unsportsmanlike Gloating).

(Series 3 Episode 6 "The Cornhusker Vortex"): "And without rules, the competition has no meaning. And without meaning, the following would be an empty gesture. (Sings) I have your kite. I have your kite."

Amy Santiago is quite guilty of this on Brooklyn Nine-Nine, whenever she seems to have an advantage in any competition of any sort.

Music

"So Excellent" by Kylie Mole (a regular character on Australian sketch comedy show The Comedy Company) is about Kylie fantasising about being a famous pop star. Near the end of the song, she exclaims "Eat your heart out, Whitney! Move over, Madonna!", and then launches into a rant about how jealous her enemy at school is going to be of her popularity and fame, how she's going to have to dump her boyfriend because he's not cool enough, and how she's not going to share any of her money with anyone, especially not her parents, since they don't give her enough pocket money.

"Sports Song" by "Weird Al" Yankovic uses the traditional "fight song"-type marching band to deliver a version that goes just a bit too far. Particularly the "We're great, And you suck" refrain in the middle.

Professional Wrestling

The day after CM Punk ran off with the WWE Title in his hometown of Chicago, one hour before his contract expired, he tweeted a picture of the belt...in his refrigerator.

Daniel Bryan, upon winning the world heavyweight championship, began enthusiastically chanting "Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes" nonstop and walked out of the arena posing with the belt while he did so. In his proceeding appearances, he was still chanting celebratory "YES"es and when he ambushed Sheamus and put him the Lebell, the "Yes!" chant started up again. This happened again when Team Hell No won the world tag team championships, only in this case Daniel Bryan was gloating to his forced partner Kane.

Kimberly dancing on the Orpheum bar at SHINE 6.

"My client, Brock Lesnar, conquered the Undertaker's undefeated streak at Wrestlemania!" This would bite both Heyman and Lesnar in the ass one year and a half later when 'Taker decided to cost Lesnar his chance to regain the WWE World Heavyweight Championship, just because they wouldn't shut up about it.

Video Games

World of Warcraft allows and even encourages players to use emotes such as /laugh, /pity and /hug on the bodies of their recently-deceased enemies. The Forsaken can even eat the corpse. Corpsecamping the opponent can be considered a more extreme version of this, making sure that the enemy stays down. You can also teabag dead enemies, as mentioned below.

Droppable banners were recently added to the game, which grant a buff to nearby players... or can be dropped on corpses to humiliate them. There even exists the Banner of Ownership, which shoves a banner with a mocking thumbs down emblem into the corpse of an enemy.

Many FPS games (though other types can have it as well) have this in the form of teabagging. Someone scores a kill on you and they celebrate by going to your corpse and keep squatting down on your face. It isn't enough that they killed you, they also have to violate you as well. Hilarity Ensues if the teabagger gets killed while not paying attention and gets teabagged himself.

In the Punch-Out!! games, several of Little Mac's opponents will laugh evilly when they beat him. Soda Popinski is probably the worst, doing so every time he even knocks you down.

In Fire Emblem Fates, specifically the Conquest path where the main character sides with their adopted family over the one they were born to, this happens in Chapter 11. Nohrian Princess and verypossessive big sister Camilla takes a moment to rub it in for her counterpart, Hoshidan Princess Hinoka, about how the main character chose her as their "true" sister over their actual sibling and that they don't need anyone else in that role but her.

Sonic: (gloating over a defeated boss) Wow, sometimes I even impress myself! For a second there I wasn't sure I was going to pull it off... Oh, who am I kidding, we both knew how this would end.

Tails: Uh, are you talking to the broken robot who can't hear you?

Sonic: ...Maybe. That's between me and the robot.

Everybody in the Street Fighter games do this, using their victory quote to gloat over their fallen and often visibly injured opponent.

Since the Taunt Button was implemented in Fighting Games, most of them do not permit taunting after a round is finished to avoid this behavior (in-game, of course). Notable exceptions include Street Fighter III, and the Guilty Gear series. In Guilty Gear, however, taunting the opponent when a round is over will give him a full super meter the next round.

Even before the taunt button most fighting game characters do a victory animation and/or voice-over after each win. While most of them just celebrate their victory, particularly villainous or anti-heroic fighters may insult the defeated opponent. Expect an Evil Laugh or very encouraging dialogue like "Weak!", "Too easy." or "Is that all you've got?"

After a match in League of Legends there is a very good chance at least one of the members of the winning team will say something like "gg easy" or "bg too easy" while one of the members of the losing team will answer "bg noob team". In a recent patch Riot reduced the time delay between meeting the win condition and the game ending, exactly to cut down on the amount of trash talking.

Scratch just League of Legends. Due to the nature of MOBA games, most MOBA games can count, if they enable All-Chat (and abuse them), such as Dota 2 or having a post-game chat (aside of League, there's also Smite). Heroes of the Storm prevents this by putting All-Chat to be disabled by default, and having no post-game chat.

Expect this to happen on the Playstation Network or X-Box Live with certain gamers, especially if they win a measly round after losing multiple times to the same player.

Wario and Waluigi in the Super Mario Bros. series. For example, one of Waluigi's celebrations in Mario Strikers has him take the ball (which is made of metal) and say "Want the ball? HERE!" before he throws it at a member of the other team and starts dancing around.

Team Fortress 2 encourages it in the brief period after the match ends: The losing team loses the ability to attack and goes into "surrender" poses, while the winning team gets charged up with guaranteed Critical Hits. Cue celebratory slaughter of the defeated team.

In Dark Souls II "Crown of the Sunken King", Black Phantom Jester Thomas will mock you if he manages to kill you. No other Black Phantom does this.

In Yu-Gi-Oh! Capsule Monster Coliseum, antagonistic duelists will do this if you lose to them. The worst is probably Weevil, though Yami warns him that his words will come back to haunt him.

In Pokémon X and Y, Malva does this if she actually manages to defeat the player.

Overwatch had a rash of players chatting "gg ez" after winning a game, which Blizzard countered by having the comment automatically replaced with a phrase suggesting the player's lack of self-confidence and\or need for validation.

Hearthstone has a limited communication system with strangers, restricting you to one of six emotes by your hero. Use of this system veers toward this trope if a player spams it before going for the kill. Not helping matters is the subtly condescending voice acting each hero has with their lines. Other forms of this trope involves showing off as much as the player can do before closing in for the kill, including wiping the rest of the board. Such practices are known as BM (Bad Manners).

In Splatoon and Splatoon 2, squidbagging (rapidly switching from squid to humanoid form after a kill) is seen as this. It's highly frowned upon.

Whenever Pearl wins a Splatfest, she accentuates her victory by rapping about her side being better than Marina's. Marina tried to let it slide for a while, but after losing three in a row, it's clear she had enough.

As part of his general campaign to rub his disrespect for the evil Kua-Toa in their scaly faces, Little One of Tales from My D&D Campaign sets up some impromptu art displays using the corpses of Kua scouting parties he surprised on a raid into trout-occupied territory. The first group he simply impales on stakes, for the second he cuts their heads off, impales the bodies upside-down, and then sticks the head on top (i.e., the Kua have their heads up their behinds).

Jayuzumi has this as a staple of his show, taunting opponents via soundboard when he wins.

Cartman embodies this trope. In fact, Kyle got him once by deciding not to be annoyed he lost and humbly acknowledging Cartman's victory. Cartman was furious.

Not only that, he seems to care more about the gloating rather than the reward itself. In "Christian Rock Hard" he was furious about the bet's Exact Words biting him on the ass, not caring about how successful his band had become.

That jerk professional skier who challenged Stan to a ski race in the episode "Asspen" despite being many years older than Stan and being super-experienced (whereas Stan was just learning). Stan knew he was going to lose, he acknowledged that he'd lose, and he participated only so when he lost the other guy would leave him alone. That didn't stop the other guy from rubbing it in Stan's face. Of course this was a parody of underdog sports movies.

And in addition to that, there's also Randy Marsh during the Pinewood Derby. He pretty much gloats and mocks the rival's father, who later suicides.

In "Breast Cancer Show Ever" Cartman repeatedly humiliates Wendy. When she challenges him to a fight, he goes to pathetic lengths to keep that from happening. After getting her to promise not to fight him (by lying to her parents) he continues to gloat and humiliate her, which leads to his epic brutal beatdown at the hands of a girl.

In the episode "Driven to Tears," Patrick takes Mrs. Puff's driving test after SpongeBob fails it yet again, believing it to be rigged... and passes with a perfect score on his first attempt. From there, the entire episode consists of Patrick rubbing his new license and car in SpongeBob's face every possible chance he gets, declaring himself a "driving genius".

"Skill Crane" had Squidward becoming obsessed with winning a prize from a crane machine. Once he gets one, however, he starts gloating like crazy.

Skill Crane: You lose! [Kid sighs] Squidward: You didn't win the prize? Kid: No. Squidward: You know what that means? Kid: No, what? Squidward: It means... you have no skills and you're a loser! [laughs]I'm a winner, see my prize! You're a loser who sits and cries! [laughs; then kid kicks him in the shin] Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow!

Mr. Krabs does this whenever Plankton fails to get the Krabby Patty formula just to rub his face in it.

In the 2012 version, Raphael is usually Always Second Best to Leo. However, if Raph manages to get a win over Leo, he will take great pleasure in rubbing it in Leo's face. Even if it's for the majority of an episode!

Hank's old high school rivals won the state championship decades ago due to Hank breaking his ankle, and every day on the anniversary of their win, find every member of the old team (Hank especially) and gloat. To the point of barging into their home while eating dinner. Decades later.

That same game was the reason why Hank himself is against this trope. When he scored a touchdown, he did a goofy victory dance which re-watching the footage as an adult ashamed him. He told Bobby that his ankle breaking which costed the game was "God punishing [him] for showboating".

Another episode has Bobby and Peggy betting on mundane things. What are they betting on? Bragging rights, specifically the kind that let you act like a total jerk. Later they move to reverse bragging rights, meaning you need to shower the winner with praise.

On Arthur D.W. beats her brother at checkers and starts singing and dancing about "I was checker champ, and Arthur checker chump!" — for an entire year.

Bugs Bunny has an unfortunate habit of stooping to this level on occasion, which sometimes comes back to bite him in the tail, such as in Bully for Bugs when it turns out Toro isn't quite as defeated as Bugs thinks.

Season 6 episode Buckball Season had Applejack have Pinkie, Fluttershy and Snails (yes really) sub for them in a game against her cousin, Breaburn. After Ponyville wins in a very close game, Breaburn and his team congratulate Ponyville on their win. Dash naturally soils this a bit by claiming "[Ponyville] whooped the hooves off them!". Again, it was a close game and both Pinkie and Fluttershy admitted that Breaburn's team was very good and really pushed them to their limits.

AJ in The Fairly Oddparents partakes in this in the episode "Smarty Pants," openly bragging about his straight As and seizing virtually every opportunity to rub them in Timmy's face. At the end of the episode, this comes back to bite him when he wins a trophy... and promptly spikes it into the ground in a show of gloating, breaking it.

Dexter's Laboratory: In the episode "Game Over," every time Dee Dee beats Dexter at video games, she relentlessly rubs it in his face, dancing around the room and chanting "I won!"... and yet, she has the audacity to call him a Sore Loser when he tells her he doesn't want to play games with her anymore.

Another episode has Dee Dee ask Dexter to play board games with her during a rainy day, and after she beats him at their first attempt and boast that he can beat Dexter at any game, Dexter designs his own games. Not only does he stack the deck heavily in favor for himself, he acts like a douche about beating Dee Dee in games she really has no chance of winning.

Not only is Quagmire a sore loser on Family Guy, he's also a very poor winner. He's extremely competitive and hurls abuse at his opponents if he wins and his own teammates if they lose.

Peter, when playing for the New England Patriots, would do this after scoring a single touchdown, angering Tom Brady enough to kick him off the team.

Kaeloo: If Mr. Cat ever wins anything, the first thing he does is yell "I WON!" and make fun of the loser(s) of the game. An example is in Episode 85 where he wins a debate against Kaeloo (by cheating), and his response is to jump up from the table, throw a mallet at Kaeloo, and run around yelling about how he won.

The Loud House: Lynn, as seen in the episode "Lynner Take All", is the undisputed queen of this trope. The plot has the rest of the Loud siblings team up to try to beat her at a board game, simply because they're that sick of her excessive gloating whenever she wins such as writing "loser" on her sister's foreheads (and shaving it on Lincoln's head) and making confetti out of their homework.

In Major League Baseball, some see any celebration after a home run or big strikeout as unsportsmanlike. It's not technically against the rules, but the game is self-policing. Meaning the next time you get up after you do that, you catch a 95-mile-per-hour fastball in the earhole.

There's an ongoing debate as to whether it should be that way or not. Some players feel that that way of playing is 'tired' and that players should be allowed to flip their bat or play to the crowd a little bit, citing Latin American baseball as an example of the players making a big deal out of even routine home runs.

The National Football League has set increasingly larger penalties for players who engage in 'excessive celebration'. Some of these are for player safety - for instance, a player is never allowed to remove his helmet if he's anywhere on the play field no matter what's going on, even if he just scored a touchdown. However, taunting carries a penalty because it's seen as just bad form.

During a game between the 49ers and Cowboys, Terrell Owens ran to the center of the Cowboys' field, standing in the middle of the team's star logo, drawing a penalty. He attempted to do the same thing later in the game, only get to get clobbered for it - which also drew a penalty.

Randy Moss once pretended to pull down his pants and moon the Green Bay Packers fans when he played for the Minnesota Vikings. He's remembered less for that than Joe Buck is remembered for calling it a "disgusting act."

Golden Tate of the Seattle Seahawks is rather well remembered for tauntingly waving goodbye at a St. Louis Rams defender when he ran to the end zone. It drew a flag, and most Rams fans won't let him forget it.

In British football, this is the inevitable result of one team or the other winning a derby match - and during the height of the English hooliganism epidemic, it could lead to extreme violence.

Ken Bates, chairman of Chelsea and then Leeds United, was infamous for this. Perhaps the most glaring instance was on the last day of the 2007-08 season, when he openly gloated that Leeds's victory over Gillingham — which relegated the latter club — was payback for Gillingham being one of the few clubs who voted for Leeds to be expelled outright from the Football League for breaching the league's financial rules, instead of just being given the hefty points deduction they eventually got.

This ping-pong match video starts with the score 10-0. Upon winning, the blue player launches into a minute-long singing, dancing, swaggering taunt of his opponent, culminating with getting in his face and saying "How does it feel to lose?" Subverted when the camera pans back to the judges table to show that the score is now 10-1.

A spectacular example of an Unsportsmanlike Gloating backfire occurred during a 1996 World Cup cricket match between the defending champions Pakistan, and the home team India. Pakistani batsman Aamir Sohail looked to be in excellent form and was vivisecting the Indian bowlers. After smashing local favorite bowler Venkatesh Prasad for four runs, Sohail gloated by pointing to a section of the field's boundary and boasting that the next ball bowled to him will be hit there. Prasad retorted by bowling an unplayable delivery that knocked out the wicket stumps behind Sohail, thereby getting him "out clean bowled".

American Football in Europe is played to NCAA (College) rules, which - College being about educating young people - are rather heavy on the "no gloating" part. However, referees in the national leagues vary widely in their enforcement and many players grew up watching over the top celebrations from the NFL that they naturally want to emulate. In the 2014 final of the European Championship, this all went to a head. Germany and Austria were pretty evenly matched and the game went to overtime, but all through the game, the refs would harshly penalize every hint of celebration after a big play. Germany ultimately caught wise, Austria didn't. guess who won?

With regards to pinball playing, there's an interesting reversal between casual versus professional play regarding a situation in which a player has the lead with one ball still to play, and their opponent having used all three. Obviously, this means that the player has won. In the professional circuit, to actually play the third and final ball is seen as disrespectful, as the player runs up the score on his opponent, so the proper etiquette is to spring the ball, but let it drop without intentionally grabbing any points. However, among casual players, it is seen as gloating/taunting to not play the ball, since it shows you didn't need all three balls to beat one's opponent, so among casual players, regardless of how large the lead is, the winning player will still attempt to play.

This chess player gloats and mocks his opponent (the previous champion) so much that the judges disqualify him for foul behavior, forcing him to forfeit the prize. When he throws a tantrum about that, security throws him out of the tournament entirely and bans him for life. When he sues over that, he gets banned from every chess tournament in Ohio.

Community

Tropes HQ

TVTropes is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available from thestaff@tvtropes.org. Privacy Policy